No approval for Sapo's empty promises

INCREASING reports of disruption to postal services, intimidation of SA Post Office employees, and damage to property that started in Gauteng about eight weeks ago and have spread nationwide, are cause for grave concern.

With the strike in progress, businesses cannot send out invoices – these remain unpaid. Parcels and packages are not delivered. Students cannot receive materials or submit assignments. These are but a few examples of the essential role the SA Post Office needs to play in the economic and social fabric of our society.

With little in the way of explanations or updates issued by the SA Post Office – whose core business is supposed to be communication – the reasons for the labour unrest have become apparent following the answers supplied to written questions posed by the DA to the minister of telecommunications and postal services.

Notwithstanding claims made in a statement issued by the SA Post Office on September 29 that more than 2000 casual employees have been given permanent contracts since last year, and a further 1500 were “recently concluded”, the real picture is very different.

As of August 1, a total of 7556 workers were employed on a casual basis – down from 7911 as reported to parliament’s portfolio committee on communications on February 19 last year, and 7788 on March 1 this year.

This means that in the 12 months since the offer was made by Sapo management to workers to end the previous strike in February last year, just 123 casual workers were made permanent. And in the 21 months to August 1 this year.   355 had been permanently employed. This equates to just 17 people a month.

The implementation of the SA Post Office’s flexible labour strategy required that the 7911 casual workers employed on year-long contracts would be appointed as permanent part-time employees. This meant they would qualify for benefits including vacation and maternity leave, medical aid, pension and a housing allowance. These workers would also receive preference for full-time employment as vacancies occurred.

As the majority of these workers are employed in the critical areas of mail processing, mail delivery, and transport and logistics, with a number in the retail front office environment, this explains why postal services have been so severely impacted, with a mail backlog exceeding eight weeks.

Clearly, the Sapo management saw little need to deliver on promises made to the workers and did not respond with the urgency and at the conversion rate required to meet their obligations.

This has led to widespread dissatisfaction and labour unrest that must be laid squarely at the feet of the Sapo management.

It is therefore welcome that the group CEO Christopher Hlekane has been placed on extended leave.

As a factual case in point, a casual worker at a post office in the northern suburbs of Johannesburg has been employed only on a casual basis for the last 10 years.

As a result, she does not have access to any of the benefits or security that come with loyal service to a company.

Regardless of whether the post office claims to be in a position to pay workers a decent wage, exploitation of the workforce is morally reprehensible and cannot form part of any so-called turnaround strategy.

There are several companies in the private sector that offer competitive services to the SA Post Office, ranging from mail and courier services to post boxes. Many of the services offered by these private operators piggyback on those available  through the SA Post Office, yet are charged at a much higher rate. In spite of this, all these entities continue to expand, their retail premises are professional and clean, the businesses are run at a profit, and not a single day gets lost to labour unrest. Why then does the SA Post Office find itself financially unsustainable and year after year, depends on the taxpayer for a bailout?

The loss in revenue as a result of recent strikes – at least five of them – runs into hundreds of millions of rands. Considering the reputational damage to the organisation and the possibility that many customers will turn to other enterprises in the future, it isn’t surprising that entrepreneurs take advantage of the gap in the market for a reliable postal service and meet this need. This does not bode well for the future sustainability of  SA Post Office business.

The Minister of Telecommunications and Postal Services Siyabonga Cwele must bring an immediate end to the strike and mitigate any further damage by:

lFast-tracking the permanent employment of all casual workers;

lImmediately implementing measures to safeguard property and postal items;

lImplementing contingency plans to clear the backlog of postal items;

lImplementing a comprehensive communications campaign to all stakeholders;

lReviewing the SA Post Office’s turnaround plan.

The DA condemns unreservedly any acts of violence, intimidation, or destruction of property and urges workers to continue to exercise restraint until a speedy solution is found to this crisis.

The question is not whether the SA Post Office can afford to make good on its commitment to permanently employ its contract workers as promised, but that it can’t.

The alternative is the continuing disruption of an essential service on which countless South Africans completely depend.

Cameron MacKenzie  is a DA MP and shadow deputy minister of telecommunications and postal services